A cinema in Paris was not supposed to feel like this - too loud, too alive, too packed for a random night in winter. Yet the lobby had turned into a slow-moving tide of bodies and perfume and impatient footsteps, the kind of crowd that makes you realize something has slipped past "premiere" and into "event."
Connor had just bought the tickets when a familiar cadence - his language, his people, that particular blend of speed and warmth that never fully disappears even after years abroad - cut through the French chatter beside him.
"Batman v Superman drops today too… we could watch that first?"
The voice was young, early twenties at most, the tone curious in a way that sounded almost guilty.
"No way," the man next to her answered immediately, in the same language, with stubborn pride. "We didn't come all the way out here to half-commit. We're supporting our own. Death Note first."
Connor and his wife frowned at the same time, not because of the words, but because of the sound of the man's voice. Something about it snagged the brain like a hook - familiar in a way that didn't make sense.
Connor turned his head.
There was a guy in a mask and a cap, trying hard to look like a nobody while still moving with that quiet confidence of someone who's been stared at his entire adult life. The posture was relaxed, almost shy, but the energy around him wasn't. The kind of "don't look too long" electricity that makes people look longer.
Connor stared, squinting, trying to reconcile the ordinary disguise with the impossible recognition building in his throat.
Then it clicked.
"Oh, come on - Gotye?!"
The name burst out of him before he could swallow it.
He and his wife moved on instinct, excitement taking over like a reflex, and for a split second Connor was already imagining the photo, the signature, the story he'd tell later. But a man standing slightly behind the masked figure stepped sideways - no aggression, no theatrics, just a calm block that made it clear: you're not getting closer unless he says so.
Connor froze.
And then, instead of shrinking away, the masked man sighed - soft, almost amused, like he'd been caught trying to sneak out the back of his own life.
He stepped forward.
"Hey," Gotye said, voice gentle, a little awkward, like fame was an outfit that never fit right. "You're from back home?"
Hearing that question - simple, human - made Connor's pulse jump all over again. Gotye pulled out a pen, signed quickly, and even paused to make sure the ink didn't smear, like he cared more about not ruining their tickets than about looking cool.
Connor's face went warm. He hated how obvious his excitement was.
"So… Paris," Connor blurted, trying to sound casual and failing completely. "You here hunting inspiration for a new record?"
Gotye blinked, lips pressing together in that half-smile people wear when they're about to dodge a question without lying too hard.
"Something like that," he said. "Mostly… just trying to stay curious."
It was the most Gotye answer possible - art before ego, observation before spectacle. He gave them a small wave, grateful but already retreating, and turned with the woman beside him - someone close enough to him to feel safe, the kind of presence that didn't demand attention but anchored him anyway.
Connor watched them disappear into the crowd, still stunned by the fact that the universe had casually dropped him into a moment like that.
Because Connor had bought tickets.
Gotye hadn't.
Not because he wanted to make a statement - because he didn't. He never did. He'd simply arranged a quiet screening in advance, the way someone who hates being watched might quietly buy himself two hours of darkness without strangers breathing down his neck.
A few minutes later, Gotye sat in the middle of an auditorium that felt absurdly large for only two people. The lights were still half up when he finally pulled off the mask. His face looked tired in a normal way, the way real people look when they're not photoshopped into legends. He wasn't trying to be mysterious. He just wanted to be left alone long enough to actually watch something.
His companion leaned toward him, a smile curling at the edge of her mouth.
"Alex is bigger than you back home right now," she teased, light and effortless.
Gotye let out a quiet breath that sounded like laughter being polite.
"That's because I haven't put anything out," he said, stubborn in a soft way, as if saying it firmly could make it truer.
She rolled her eyes with the weary affection of someone who'd heard that excuse a hundred times. The world always wanted Gotye to be a machine that produced hits on command, and he always moved at the speed of obsession, not schedules - collecting sounds, disappearing into projects, resurfacing only when something felt finished in his bones.
The lights dimmed.
The screen ignited.
Logos swept across: platforms, studios, money. Then, like a final stamp that mattered more than all the corporate glitter combined, the production mark appeared - Alex's company - and the words that carried weight even before the first scene landed:
A FILM BY ALEX.
The auditorium went quiet in a way that felt intentional, like the world itself was leaning in.
The first image was a wasteland of skulls - bone-white and endless, a dead landscape built out of what used to be lives. Shapes moved through it: creatures that made the skin crawl, their silhouettes wrong, their proportions like a nightmare trying to imitate anatomy.
One of them sat on a pile of craniums like it was a throne. Huge, bulging eyes jutted out of its sockets, obscene and fragile at the same time, as if they might tumble free with the slightest movement. It stared into the distance, still as a monument.
"Hey! Ryuk!" a group of other monsters called from behind, gathered around a card game, their laughter rough and sharp. "What're you doing over there? Come play with us for once!"
The creature didn't even bother to turn.
"…No," it answered, voice flat. "Not today."
The screen dipped to black for the briefest blink.
Then the contrast hit like a slap.
Bright classroom. Clean lines. The ordinary hum of a school day. Alex in a uniform, chin propped on one hand, listening like someone who could memorize the world and still find it boring.
Beside Gotye, his companion breathed out without thinking.
"He's… annoyingly photogenic."
Gotye's mouth twitched, like he wanted to disagree on principle and couldn't.
"It should be illegal," he murmured, more amused than bitter.
In another auditorium, Connor was having a worse time - because it wasn't just him reacting. It was the girls around him, French voices cracking into suppressed squeals, the air filling with that helpless excitement people try to hide when they don't want to look predictable. And there was his wife too, staring a second too long.
Connor swallowed the discomfort like a man swallowing glass.
The story moved forward. The teacher called the top student up, asked him to translate a passage - an early, deliberate brushstroke of "this kid is elite," the kind of excellence that looks clean on paper and suffocating in real life. Alex wasn't just playing smart; he made smart feel effortless, almost indifferent.
When the dismissal bell rang, the protagonist slipped in a wireless earbud and walked home as if the world was a repetitive loop he'd already solved.
The news in his ear flowed into the theater, cold and casual.
"At 11 a.m. today, in Manhattan, New York, the body of a man in his thirties was found in an apartment, covered in blood…"
"Next story: a twenty-five-year-old woman in Boston was sexually assaulted and murdered. The suspect is a thirty-five-year-old man identified as Thompson…"
The boy's eyes narrowed with something like disgust. Not shock - fatigue. The kind that doesn't come from empathy, but from boredom with how predictable human ugliness can be.
Every day, the same headlines.
Every day, the same rot.
"Every day… every day…" his inner voice pressed. "It's always the same thing."
A sound interrupted him.
A simple thud. Something landing.
He turned his head.
On the grass near the school gate, a black notebook lay as if it had fallen out of the sky and chosen that spot on purpose.
He approached, curiosity tugging him forward in spite of himself, and picked it up.
"DEATH… NOTE?"
He read the title aloud, testing the words like they were a bad joke.
He opened it.
The first page stared back.
"Instructions: the human whose name is written in this notebook shall die…"
A smile curled across his face - sharp, dismissive. He shut it like he'd already won.
"Stupid."
He tossed it back onto the grass and turned to leave.
"This world is sick…"
But his feet didn't move.
Something unseen tightened in his chest - an irrational unease that didn't belong to a straight-A student who believed in logic and control. He stood there, staring at nothing, until the discomfort became unbearable.
Then he turned back.
Picked the notebook up again.
Took it home like a guilty secret.
At his desk, he stripped off the uniform and read the rules again, slower this time, letting the details sink in.
"The person's face must be pictured in your mind when writing their name. This notebook will not affect those sharing the same name."
"If the cause of death is written within forty seconds of the name, the person will die of that cause. If not specified, the default is heart failure."
"After writing the cause, you have six minutes and forty-four seconds to describe the details."
He let out a scoff, but it wasn't purely contempt anymore. There was interest now - dark, curious, the kind of interest that only appears when something feels just plausible enough to be dangerous.
"So you can decide whether they die easy or die screaming." He exhaled, almost entertained. "For a prank, whoever wrote this was way too committed."
He closed the notebook, ready to throw it in the trash.
And then his hand hesitated.
He picked up a pen.
Brought the tip close to the page.
"Wait… if this is real…" his thoughts tightened. "Then I'm a murderer."
His fingers trembled - not with fear, not exactly. With the weight of the choice.
And right then, his phone's broadcast shifted into something urgent, something alive.
"The suspect who attacked six pedestrians yesterday is now holding six children and a teacher hostage in an elementary school in New York. Police have identified the perpetrator as a forty-two-year-old unemployed man named - "
The name dropped.
The world narrowed to a point.
The boy stared at the screen, then at the notebook, then at his own hand as if it belonged to someone else.
The pen moved.
He wrote the name.
"Forty seconds," he Momoed, eyes locked on the watch. "Heart failure, right?"
In Gotye's private auditorium, the air changed. Even with no strangers around, tension built the way it does when a story tightens its fist. Across the world, in packed theaters, people leaned forward without realizing they'd moved.
Seconds passed.
The film made you feel them.
And then - nothing.
The boy let out a breath that was half relief, half irritation.
"See? Of course nothing happened."
He reached to turn off the phone.
"Wait!" the reporter suddenly yelled, voice cracking with adrenaline. "There's movement - kids are coming out! The teacher too! Police are going in - what's happening in there?"
The boy froze.
His hand stopped mid-gesture.
Onscreen, the reporter pressed a finger to their earpiece, listening, then stared into the camera like the world had just flipped.
"Breaking update! The suspect… is dead!"
"Police confirm no shots were fired. For reasons unknown, the perpetrator collapsed and died on the spot!"
The boy's eyes widened, breath catching hard, disbelief slamming into him like a wave.
He looked down at the name in the notebook.
The same name.
The same letters.
The same minute.
A slow, electric smile crept across his face - because in that instant, his boredom finally found something it could bite into.
"…Now that," he Momoed, voice trembling with excitement, "is interesting."
Gotye didn't cheer. He didn't gasp dramatically. He simply went still, the way artists go still when they recognize a premise that can swallow a world whole. He lifted his cup - tea gone lukewarm now - and took a quiet sip, eyes never leaving the screen.
And somewhere out there, in every country that was allowed to watch, audiences felt the same chill of understanding.
So that was the foundation.
So that was the rule.
A concept so simple - and so monstrous - that everything could be built on top of it.
And, as always, the world tried to pin the genius to a name it already feared.
"Only Sosuke Aizen would come up with something like this."
If Alex had heard that, he would've laughed - sharp and irritated and fully awake.
Because the truth was blunt.
He wasn't Sosuke Aizen.
He was Alex.
And whether the world liked it or not, it was going to learn to say it.
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